Exploring Wind and Solar PV Generation Complementarity to Meet Electricity Demand

António Couto and Ana Estanqueiro
Additional contact information
António Couto: LNEG—National Laboratory of Energy and Geology, 1649-038 Lisbon, Portugal
Ana Estanqueiro: LNEG—National Laboratory of Energy and Geology, 1649-038 Lisbon, Portugal

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 16, 1-21

Abstract: Understanding the spatiotemporal complementarity of wind and solar power generation and their combined capability to meet the demand of electricity is a crucial step towards increasing their share in power systems without neglecting neither the security of supply nor the overall cost efficiency of the power system operation. This work proposes a methodology to exploit the complementarity of the wind and solar primary resources and electricity demand in planning the expansion of electric power systems. Scenarios that exploit the strategic combined deployment of wind and solar power against scenarios based only on the development of an individual renewable power source are compared and analysed. For each scenario of the power system development, the characterization of the additional power capacity, typical daily profile, extreme values, and energy deficit are assessed. The method is applied to a Portuguese case study and results show that coupled scenarios based on the strategic combined development of wind and solar generation provide a more sustainable way to increase the share of variable renewables into the power system (up to 68% for an annual energy exceedance of 10% for the renewable generation) when compared to scenarios based on an individual renewable power source. Combined development also enables to reduce the overall variability and extreme values of a power system net load.

Keywords: wind power; solar power; variable renewable energy (VRE); renewable generation complementarity; renewable deployment scenarios; renewable large-scale integration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/16/4132/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/16/4132/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:16:p:4132-:d:396906

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().